A Spoken-Word Poem for America

Hello, my friends. Some of you have intimated lately, through email, that I have abandoned you. But I have not abandoned you, and think about each of you every day, sometimes more than once. Remember that my writing is for you, and only you, and I beg you to never doubt me. Indeed, my trip across the country has allowed me to dabble in new genres of literature, such as the screenplay and the motivational pamphlet. Lately, I have become a poet as well, and a damn good one. I originally performed the following masterwork on October 10, 2000, at City Lights Bookstore, in San Francisco. Lawrence Ferlinghetti himself stayed until the end, and he usually goes home around seven, so chew on that. Now I present it to you. Please read it aloud for full effect, right now. Don’t mind what the person in the next cubicle thinks, because…

- - -

Poetry
Poetry
Poetry
Is not… a hamburger.
You can’t order it without onions
Or eat it in your car
With your radio tuned
To the music of the barrio
Where hot-pant cholos
Wait outside the bodega
Tapping their feet
To the endless ritmo
Of the junky-filled ambulancias.
Oh, Spanish Harlem!
Where jazz leaks up from
The sidewalks, where
Mayor Giuliani’s fascist piggies
Dare not tread.
Where the law is a dime bag
And Santana is a god.

- - -

I am America!
I sing of our country
From the bowels of my heart.
These are not the United States
Of Columbus
This is Aztlan
And Attica
And everywhere
That the prisoners run free
And the businessman’s republic
Is a barter
For peace and justice
Paz
Y
Justicia

- - -

I smoke America!
From a pipe I bought
For one hundred dollars
In Park City, Utah
During the Sundance Film Festival
While the hipsters
With their Digicams
Made movies about themselves.

- - -

This is not reality television!
This is reality
And the only islands
Are the ones we construct for
Ourselves
In our minds.
America!
Studio apartments for $1200 a month
And a Jamba Juice
On every corner
Of every college town
In every American state.

- - -

Would you trade
A night at the Apollo
For a third political party?
Would you rather
Be a human-rights
Observer in Colombia
Than attend theMTV Music Video Awards?
Are you an American?
Do you have a DSL hookup
In your loft apartment?
Are there poor people
In your neighborhood?
Where are you tonight,
Oh, sweet Jesus?

- - -

Someday
We will all be able
To afford a ticket
To the Super Bowl
And a professional wrestler
Will be President.
Only then will our children,
Our Amerindian, Southeast Asian,
Lesbian, African-American,
Chicano, Jewish hillbilly
Children, know the
Truth.
America is a sucker’s bet
And a drunkard’s dream.
It is a poem written
Hurriedly
In Golden Gate Park
On a book tour.
It is a polluted hustle,
An eight-armed monster
Available 24 hours a day.
America has no borders.
It is death on a stick.
It is tonight,
And tonight I love you,
My American people.
My American poem.